The World Of Ice And Fire: The Lords of Dragonstone
Warning, Spoilers Ahead...
The Targaryens were Valyrian lineage of ancient lineage. They were “far from the most powerful dragonlords” in the constant struggle for dominance between the twoscore rival Valyrian houses.
Twelve years before the Doom, Aenar Targaryen sold his holdings in the Freehold and the Lands of the Long Summer and moved “all his wives, wealth, slaves, dragons, siblings, kin, and children” to Dragonstone.
The re-location of the Targaryens was seen as a sign of surrender by the other Valyrian houses. Daeyns, Aenar’s daughter, had foreseen the Doom of Valyria and warned her father. Aenar took his daughter’s vision seriously and initiated the move to Dragonstone.
The book states Daenys became known as the Dreamer after the Doom. Did she have any visions before the one of the Doom? Did she have any after? Aenar had an enormous amount of faith in his daughter if her vision of the Doom was her first prophetic dream. Most fathers would simply dismiss it as a bad dream but he sold everything, gathered the entire family, and moved to a new continent. Did any of the family have any objections or was Aenar’s word final and no dissension was brooked?
Did Aenar feel foolish when nothing happened for years after Daeyns’ dream? Vindication of the move didn’t occur until twelve years later. Did Aenar attempt to warn any of his fellow Valyrians or did he simply gather everyone of importance to him and left the rest of his civilization to its fate? Regardless, the Targaryens were the only dragonlords to survive the Doom.
“Dragonstone had been the westernmost outpost of Valyrian power for two centuries. Its location athwart the Gullet gave its lords a stranglehold on Blackwater Bay, and enabled both the Targaryans and their close allies, the Velaryons of Driftmark (a lesser house of Valyrian descent), to fill their coffers off the passing trade. Velaryon ships, along with those of another allied Valyrian house, the Celtigars of Claw Isle, dominated the middle reaches of the narrow sea, while the Targaryans ruled the skies with their dragons.”
The Velaryons and the Celtigars would remain loyal to the Targaryans through Robert’s Rebellion and may continue to be with the arrival of (fake) Aegon and later Danerys to Westeros.
In the hundred years after the Doom of Valyria, known as the Century of Blood, the Targaryans paid little attention to the events in Westeros.
After the death of Aenar the Exile, Gaemon Targaryan, brother and husband of Daenys the Dreamer, became Lord of Dragonstone. He would later be referred to as Gaemon the Glorious. There is no mention of what made Gaemon so glorious. Aegon and Elaena, Gaemon’s son and daughter, ruled after his death.
The lordship passed to Aegon and Elaena’s eldest son, Maegon, and then to a younger son, Aerys. Aelyx, Baelon, and Daemion, the sons of Aerys, were the next lords of Dragonstone. Daemion’s son, Aerion, then succeeded to Dragonstone.
Up next, the most famous Dragonstone lord of all time: Aegon the Conqueror.
